Sasha Renée Pérez, 28

In a time when housing rights are more important than ever, Sasha Reneé Pérez is hoping to be the first renter ever elected to the Alhambra City Council. She knows first hand what happens when policy fails to protect our most vulnerable after losing a family member who was failed by anti-homeless policies. Fueled by her lived experiences, she’s running to advocate for communities on personal and policy level.

Name: Sasha Renée Pérez
Running for: Alhambra City Council
Age: 28

What was the best piece of advice you received before running for office?

The best piece of advice I received was to start early. I have a number of friends that have run for office before and they all said, “I just wish that I would have had more time.” 

I sat down with a number of people before I even decided to do this and just really listened to their lessons learned. There was such a consistent theme of just feeling like they were so rushed. So I launched incredibly early, and people actually thought that I was a little crazy when I made the decision to launch in November, which is a full year before my election. That's not typically the case for smaller municipal elections. Usually, people launch between six to eight months before. 

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the pandemic happened. I couldn't have predicted that we were suddenly going to go into shutdown mode. But it allowed me to begin doing voter outreach and connecting with my supporters and fundraising before COVID-19 hit. Looking back on it now, I'm just so happy that I made that choice and didn't listen to the people who advised me against it. It was probably the best decision I could have made. 

Speaking of COVID, how is it affecting your city? What actions would you make on the city council to address the pandemic?

In Alhambra, 62% of residents are renters. In many ways, the pandemic has unlocked a number of renters’ issues within our city and put a spotlight on the fact that we have so few protections that currently exist for renters that live in our city. A lot of that is really tied to the fact that we've never had a renter serve on council. 

If I'm elected, I will be the first renter to ever serve on council and one of the very few renters to even serve within Southern California. There's really not many of us with an elected office. So I’ve come to realize, as the pandemic has gone on, just how important my voice is within these conversations. I have people that reach out to me specifically because they feel comfortable talking to me because they understand that I am a renter. I am somebody that makes below the median income in Los Angeles County. So I feel like they're able to identify with my experience. 

I've been doing a lot of advocacy towards the council and educating people on their rights. We fought the council to put in a moratorium on evictions. Then the county of Los Angeles came out with a much broader eviction moratorium that just had a host of different policies included within it that was much stronger. We pushed the city to let our current moratorium expire and to allow for the county's to be put in place so that we'd have even stronger protections for renters. 

Some of the cases that I've discovered doing this work have been shocking. I worked with one family who was without electricity, without hot water, and without gas for almost a month. Their landlord did this intentionally in order to try to force them out of their unit. He tried to illegally evict them and tell them that they had five days to leave because he didn't want to repair their home after it caught fire from illegal fireworks. It was horrifying to see what happened to this family and to also watch them sitting at home with no electricity in the middle of a heatwave. It was just absolutely absurd to me. 

I helped them navigate code enforcement, both here in the city and at the county level. Now we’ve been able to help them stay within their home in Alhambra that they've lived in for almost 20+ years. And on top of that get their utilities working again, so they’d have electricity and hot water, which is really basic level human rights we're talking about out here. 

When did the light bulb go off? When did you realize you wanted to run for office? 

This isn't a story that I share very often. About two years ago, my cousin passed away. My cousin and several others in my family have struggled with homelessness. He had spent a good chunk of his life living on the streets. When he passed away, I found out because I received a call from the coroner's office because he passed away in a public space. 

It was a moment that was really heartbreaking for me and my family. I had watched them struggle so much. I had tried to go and find my cousin six months before that. I went looking for him through encampments in Nevada and never found him. It hurts. It really hurts. 

I've worked in policy for 10 years, so I decided to dive in to understand what was the policy landscape around housing in Las Vegas, Nevada. The City of Las Vegas has some of the most aggressive anti-homeless policies in the country, arguably, and has one of the worst affordable housing crises within the country as well. 

For me, it was very clear that my cousin was victim to a whole host of things, but really a failure at a policy level and at a municipal level to really protect people like him. I spent a lot of time reflecting on that and spent a lot of sleepless nights, staring at my ceiling, wondering what I could do. 

I needed to accept the fact that he had passed, but what I could do was get involved in my local city and make sure that no other family would ever have to feel the way that I felt losing my cousin in such a tragic way. That’s why I chose to get involved and take that next step. That was the real turning point for me - realizing that my local politics here really need the voices of people that understand these issues at both a policy level and a personal level. 

What perspectives do you think are missing on city council and what perspectives do you hope to bring?

The fact that I'm a renter and the fact that I earn below the median income within Alhambra gives me a unique perspective. We have never had a renter on Council. Yet right now, three landlords are currently serving on our council. That’s not to say that those perspectives aren't important, but it is equally as important to have the perspective of renters. 

It’s long been a perspective that's not represented enough, not just within the city of Alhambra, but across the state and the country. On top of that, I have seen, felt and really bared witness to the real impacts of poverty. I know what it means to have a family member that is chronically homeless, that is chronically without health insurance, and that is constantly at-risk. I still have family that live on the streets. And every single day of this pandemic, I think about them and worry about them because they are incredibly at-risk of catching the virus. And it is even more deadly for them to catch it, given that they don't have access to health insurance. 

For me, that's something I carry with me and I always kind of have in the back of my mind. How am I representing the folks that aren't here at the table? That’s really how I try to lead and what I take into account. 

Tell me more about your experience running as a young Democrat? Do you feel you have any advantages or disadvantages?

I think there are both positives and negatives to it. I have people that meet me and are immediately so excited that I'm running. Not just other young people, but older people that are just so excited that somebody my age is really involved locally and running for council. Honestly for me, that’s been one of the biggest surprises. I didn't expect to get that kind of reaction when I initially ran and I'm really grateful that people even want young people to run and lead during this time. 

Unfortunately I think there's a bit of a tendency to imagine young people that are Democrats and young people that are progressive are one homogeneous body and so, I've run into situations where people have made assumptions about my beliefs or called me names. It is what it is. I think it's just one of those things that comes with the territory. You know, it doesn't faze me.

Although I am incredibly young, I have more policy experience than both of my opponents and than most people that even typically run for these positions. I've worked in policy now for 10 years. Typically when folks first see me, they’re surprised by how young I am. But once I begin talking with them and share with them some of the policies that I've worked on at the statewide level, the county level, and even the municipal level, I think people are quite surprised. 

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I think being authentic has been the secret sauce to having a successful campaign.”

That’s so true. Often young candidates are told they do not have enough experience. What experiences do you think you've had that have really prepared you for this position?

I've been really grateful to work in some really amazing places and for some really amazing people. I've had a lot of great mentors. Dr. Raphael Sonenshein is one of them. He’s a leading expert in LA politics and through working for him over at the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs (PBI), I had an opportunity to learn about various systems of local municipal government and what good local governance looks like. At PBI, we empowered residents to understand their local systems of government so they could effectively advocate for changes in their community. My work there has really given me a leg up in understanding city government. 

On top of that, I currently work at the Campaign for College Opportunity under the incredible leadership of Michele Siqueiros. She has led the Campaign to become the state’s most influential higher education advocacy organization. We do a lot of work at the statewide level advocating for policy up in Sacramento. And then once things get passed, we really do the heavy lifting of making sure that those policies are then implemented with fidelity at the local level.

Overtime I’ve learned the devil is not just in the details of policy, it's really in the implementation. The implementation is really where you get the results that you want, and make sure that there's real follow up.. 

What advice would you give to another young Democrat who is considering a run for office?

Start early and be authentically you. I think being authentic has been the secret sauce to having a successful campaign. I've lived in my city my entire life. I haven't lived anywhere else and I have very strong roots here. People here have known me since my childhood. Being able to really uplift that and really embrace that has been so, so rewarding.

The views expressed in this interview are those of the candidate, and do not reflect the beliefs and views of Ballot Breakers or its staff.